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Turkish language has a gossip tense

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Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#3

Post by namaria »

brudgers wrote: post #2

So does English, https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-grammar/tense-c...

Not the same thing. Reporting speech by saying 'subject said (...) [past tense verb] (...)' is not specific to English and doesn't carry the same nuance as the tweet implies this Turkish 'gossip' tense carries.

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#4

Post by farmeroy »

Turkish is one of my favorite languages I've learned, and one of the best languages for a language learner. I think it's great for learners for two reasons: first of all, the grammar and orthography is extremely regular, and probably more importantly is that in my experience turkish speaking people are more than happy to engage is extended small talk about anything, are extremely eager to understand you despite your horrible turkish, and are almost always impressed by any level of effort. This is in terrible contrast to french or german, where not only does the grammar or spelling horrify, but people are almost unwilling to understand your pitiful efforts :(

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#8

Post by idlewords »

This is not a tense but a grammatical mood, it's called the inferential mood. A bunch of languages have it to distinguish eyewitness accounts from reported speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferential_mood

Verb tense has to do with an action's relationship to time, mood expresses the speaker's relationship and attitude to the action. English is pretty low on moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive), while other languages have a more fun arsenal.

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#9

Post by rich_sasha »

farmeroy wrote: post #4

Turkish is one of my favorite languages I've learned, and one of the best languages for a language learner. I think it's great for learners for two reasons: first of all, the grammar and orthography is extremely regular, and probably more importantly is that in my experience turkish speaking people are more than happy to engage is extended small talk about anything, are extremely eager to understand you despite your…

I feel your pain!

I'm considering learning either Turkish or Arabic, for fun (as phonetically-spelled non-Indoeuropean languages), do you have a comparison with Arabic? I know exactly what you mean re French and German...

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